1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of filling a liquid sample.
2. Related Art
A method of performing chemical analysis and chemical synthesis, biotechnology-related analysis, and the like using a microfluidic chip in which a micro flow channel is provided on a glass substrate or the like attracts attention. The microfluidic chip is called micro total analytical system (micro TAS), lab-on-a-chip, or the like. The microfluidic chip has advantages that, for example, necessary amounts of a sample and a reagent are small, a reaction time is short, and an amount of wastes is small compared with an analyzer in the past. Therefore, the microfluidic chip is expected to be used in wide fields such as medical diagnosis, on-site analysis of environment and foods, production of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and the like (JP-A-2006-509199). Since the necessary amount of the reagent is small in the microfluidic chip, cost of a test decreases. When the necessary amounts of the sample and the reagent are small, since the reaction time is substantially reduced, the test is efficient. In particular, since a necessary amount of a sample such as blood is small, a burden on a patient can be reduced using the microfluidic chip in medical diagnosis.
When an amount of a liquid sample such as a sample or a reagent is small, measurement results tend to fluctuate because dispense accuracy falls and the influence of evaporation of the liquid sample on the amount of the sample is large. In general, dispensing work for the liquid sample is complicated and a work time is long. Since consumables such as a pipette and a chip are consumed in large volume, cost of a test increases. Manual dispensing work for the liquid sample tends to cause mistakes and it is highly likely that undesirable substances are mixed in the liquid sample. According to such a background, there is a demand for a technique for accurately and precisely dispensing a small amount of a liquid sample.